Component business modeling (CBM) is a technique for modeling a business and its corresponding business activities based on “business components”. Each business component comprises a relatively independent collection of business activities. CBM provides a simple business view for strategic-level business analysis. CBM differs from traditional business process-based models, which provide a transactional view of the business. In addition, CBM facilitates qualitative analysis techniques, such as dependency analysis (to identify one or more components associated with a business pain point), heat map analysis (also to identify one or more components associated with a business pain point), and overlay analysis (to identify a shortfall, such as an information technology (IT) shortfall, of the identified component(s)).
A semantic business model helps automate the qualitative analyses facilitated by CBM. The semantic business model comprises a representation of the CBM in a semantic markup language, such as the world wide web consortium's (W3C's) resource description framework (RDF) or W3C's OWL web ontology language. The semantic business model captures relationships between various business concepts, such as one or more business components, business processes, business activities, operational metrics, performance indicators, value drivers, IT applications, IT capabilities (systems, services, solutions, . . .), and resources, including human resources. As a result, the semantic business model can be used to discover implicit facts in the analyses using the inference capabilities of an ontology.
To date, semantic business models are manually generated by one or more experts in a particular ontology. For example, the identification of relationships between the various business concepts is done manually. This process is both tedious and error-prone. Further, an individual, such as a business consultant, requires expertise and knowledge in a particular domain (e.g., an industry sector such as the retail industry, the distribution industry, the petroleum industry, etc.). Still further, an individual generating a semantic business model may inadvertently exclude one or more models that may exist for a particular business entity and/or may retype one or more models thereby introducing an additional opportunity for errors.
In view of the foregoing, there exists a need in the art to overcome one or more of the deficiencies indicated herein.